U.S. 'JUSTICE' TAKES WEST VAN MAN FROM AILING WIFE

Allen Richardson hopes to be wearing a suit and tie and "looking like a
human being" when he appears before a New York state judge next month.

"I don't want to show up in prison pyjamas with handcuffs on, looking like
a criminal," he says over coffee in a Horseshoe Bay cafe.

Richardson's state of dress when he stands before Monroe County Judge John
Connell in Rochester June 28 is under negotiation.

It is one in a series of Kafkaesque negotiations that have made his life a
living hell for the past year-and-a half.

Until December of 1998, the mild-mannered lab technician lived a quiet life
with his wife, Amalia, in West Vancouver.

He enjoyed his work at UBC's Triumf lab, volunteered with the local SPCA
and raced vintage sports cars as a hobby.

Suddenly, it all came crashing down. Richardson was arrested by the RCMP as
a fugitive from American justice for a minor drug offence when he was a
19-year-old student and political protester.

His punishment for selling $20 worth of LSD to an undercover cop was four
years in prison, beginning at the subhuman dungeon known as Attica.

Temporarily transferred to a work camp near the Canadian border, Richardson
fled north when told he was being returned to the scene of a brutal riot
that left 43 inmates and hostages dead.

For three decades he lived a productive life in Canada.

But none of that, coupled with his wife's breast cancer, has convinced
authorities on either side of the border to allow him to complete his
sentence here.

After a costly schedule of failed appeals and other legal manoeuvres,
Richardson has decided to return to Rochester and face the proverbial music.

"It was clear that we weren't going to work any closer to a solution, and
the strain really is quite unbearable around the house," he says.

"I have an enormous amount of guilt about my wife's condition. I feel
horrible about inflicting this on Amalia. I have to shorten this in the
best way possible."

Richardson has 3 1/2 years remaining in his sentence, but has no idea what
the judge will do. There is talk of him going to a medium-security prison
with early parole, although that is uncertain.

Richardson has steeled himself for the ordeal.

"I've been there, I've been in the worst place imaginable, and I survived
it. I doubt anything I face now will be that tough, and I'm doing it for
the sake of my wife more than any other reason.

"More than any sense of justice, frankly."

Prevented from working by the Canadian government, Richardson counts down
the days walking his dog and playing old-time banjo. Legal bills have
exhausted his personal finances and he and Amalia are living off of her income.

Richardson understands the logic of having to pay for his escape. But still
to be paying for the injustice of the original sentence is "very, very hard."

"Here's this one misdeed, a 19-year-old never before guilty of anything,
and here's 30 years of demonstrably decent life -- and it doesn't count.

"Why doesn't it count?"

Primarily because the prison-happy Americans want their pound of flesh, and
Canadian authorities meekly went along, unwilling to bend the rules to let
him finish the sentence here.

"I wrote the story, I'll have to live with it," Richardson says. "I guess I
rankle about it, but I'm willing to do it, and try to make it as graciously
as possible.

"But I don't like it."

Nor should anyone with a sense of fair play and common decency.